Book excerpt: A Novel About Passion And Betrayal It Is 1871, Fourteen Years After The Indian Sepoy Mutiny. Olivia O Rourke And Jai Raventhorne, Survivors Of Scandal, Who Had Married And Had Two Children, Are No Longer Together. Jai Vanished During The Mutiny, Believed To Have Been Executed By The British For Masterminding The Notorious Bibighar Massacre. But Olivia, Who Has Refused To Accept That Jai Could Be Guilty Of Such A Heinous Crime, Is Obsessed With Proving His Innocence. Amos And Maya, Their Children, Resent The Father They Scarcely Knew. While Amos Is Ambitious And Busy Building His Business In Northern India, Maya Is Troubled By Her Inherited Notoriety And Mixed Parentage. When Christian Pendlebury, The Aristocratic Son Of Sir Jasper Pendlebury, A High-Ranking English Civil Servant, Falls In Love With Maya, Olivia Fears For Her Daughter, Having Herself Experienced The Brutal Consequences Of A Forbidden Love. But Maya, Stubborn And Defiant, Ignores Her Mother S Warnings. Maya And Christian S Budding Romance Attracts The Attention Of Kyle Hawkesworth, A Secretive, Charismatic Eurasian Journalist Admired By Some And Feared By Many. Their Relationship Is Further Threatened By The Arrival In Calcutta Of Christian S Parents. Hawkesworth S Agenda And Sir Jasper S Power Combine To Unleash A Chain Of Events That Lead Inexorably To The Past And To The Secrets Buried There& The Compelling Sequel To Olivia And Jai, Ryman S Best-Selling Novel, The Veil Of Illusion Draws The Reader Into Another World And Time.